“Here it is,” one of the Squires said.
The king looked, and nodded. “Well, then. I am ready.”
“Come in,” Kieri said. “And be seated.” He waved at the chair, and the king sat in it, gingerly at first, and then leaned back.
“It is too soft,” he said. “A man would learn to slump in such a chair.”
“My apologies,” Kieri said, sitting in his own. “I was thinking of your long ride. I can have someone bring a hard one.”
“No matter. Have your say; perhaps in this soft chair I can sleep and not listen to your lies.”
“If you are trying to anger me,” Kieri said, “and force me to fight you, that will not work.”
“Will it not? I had heard you were a man easy to anger, quick to take offense.”
“Perhaps I was once, but I am trying to learn better,” Kieri said. When the king said nothing, he went on. “Until I came here, I knew nothing of where your people came from. I did not know you were Seafolk from over the eastern sea.”
The king opened one eye. “Did you not? It is common knowledge with us. Where did you think we came from?”
“I suppose I thought you were mixed mageborn and old human, like most of those in the Eight Kingdoms.”
“Mixed! We do not mix, and certainly not with magelords. You drove us out of our homes, and then, here, attacked us again.” The king leaned forward. “And then, not content with attacking us, confining us to colder, less fertile land north of the river, you despoil my daughter.”
“You sent her here,” Kieri said. “Why?”
“My first wife’s sister thought you might have changed, and of my daughters, Elis was the strongest … you had wed one of your soldiers before.”
“She told me you had promised her a home far in the north, where she could live unmarried.”
The king waved his hand. “It was a girl’s fancy. And yet, I might have let her—she had frightened away several suitors—but when you came, I thought, if she and you wed, it might bring peace. Worth more than a girl’s daydream, if that could be.”
“Um.” Kieri nodded at the pitcher on the table. “There’s water, if you want it.” The king shook his head. “Elis told me you gave her a knife—a poisoned knife—to kill me on our wedding night. That if she did so, and escaped, you promised to let her live as she pleased.”
The king looked the way Kieri had felt when Elis told him. “She—she said what? I gave her no such knife!”
“She had such a knife. She told me where her escort kept it. I had their things searched, and it was there. She said she’d been forbidden all weapons but that, and that only after our wedding.”
“I did tell them not to let her have weapons. She is a wildcat; she might have attacked her own escort.” He scowled. “But I never gave her a poisoned knife to use on you, much as I wish you dead. And Elis … I cannot believe she would lie about that. Who told her?”
“She said her escorts told her it was your command. And it is her escorts, is it not, who reported to you that she had been dishonored?”
“Yes …” Now the king looked thoughtful.
“Tell me,” Kieri said, “why you came alone, in disguise, instead of sending an envoy, or coming in person, openly. It is not a kingly act.”
“It is my disgrace. My honor. My brothers—my sister-sons—all said so, and the challenge was given. It is our way.”
“I do not understand,” Kieri said, though he was beginning to guess. He needed better than a guess.
“A leader protects his people. If he cannot protect them, he is no better than a slave … someone will challenge for leadership, and either they fight for it or the others vote … it depends on the issue.”
“And they challenged you because your daughter stayed here?”
“Because you sent her to that place of infamy.”
“To us,” Kieri said, “it is a place of honor, where Knights of Falk are trained.”
“Falk!” the king said, and spat on the carpet. “A magelord! What could be honorable about Falk?”
“Do you even know the story?”
The king waved his hand again. “Something about working in a stable to free his brothers … that’s not how to free prisoners. He should have fought …”
“That’s what I told the Knight-Commander when I trained there,” Kieri said. “He did not appreciate it.”
“You trained in that place?”
“Yes.” Kieri could feel the man’s intense curiosity, and also his determination not to ask. “It is a place to learn more than just fighting skills. I did not grow up in this palace.” As quickly as he could, he told the story: the fateful journey, the abduction, the years of torment.
“Scars do not lie, but men do,” the king said. “If you have been so mistreated, surely you bear the marks of it on your body. Show me.”
“I will,” Kieri said. He felt suddenly cold, but not the same way he had as a boy. “I would ask that you allow one of my Squires to attend me.”
“As you wish,” the king said.
Kieri called Berne; he came in the door in a rush. “It is no emergency. The king has offered me no violence, but would see my scars; I want someone in the room while I disrobe.”
“Disrobe? For this—”
“This visitor,” Kieri said carefully, “has asked proof of my history. The proof lies in my scars.”
“But … Sir King …”
Kieri shrugged. “If this ends our enmity, it will be worth any embarrassment.” With Berne in the room, he felt safe enough to pull his tunic over his head; the momentary blindness always bothered him, but less this way. With the king’s eyes on him, he unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it from his trousers and then taking it off. The scars had faded with age, as they did on most, but still made a raised pattern on his naturally pale skin. The newer scars, the ones from the wars he’d fought, were clearly made by weapons and overlaid the older, finer patterns laid on by his master in the years of captivity. He turned away from the king’s eyes, raising his arms so they showed clearly, from neck to waist.
When he turned back, the king was staring, mouth a little open; his mouth snapped shut abruptly, then he said, “That was done when?”
“I was taken when I was four winters old, and did not escape for at least eight years. There are more scars, which you will not see unless you kill me and strip my body.” Kieri said this as grimly as he felt; he saw understanding seep into the other king’s face.
“You were only a child … and you say this was a magelord who did it? How do you know?”
“He had the magery to force people to stillness.” Kieri put his arms back into the shirt Berne held for him, and buttoned it again. “He could force prisoners to silence even in great torment, or hold them motionless for the same.”
“How did you ever escape? Eight years … no normal child could survive …”
“He had no intent to kill me. He wanted me alive, to suffer. But—” Kieri looked over at the glass, now quickly running out. “—you promised to listen for only one glass. I would not abuse your patience.”
“Turn the glass again,” the king said. “I am not convinced I will not have to kill you, but I must know how you escaped.”
“It is part mystery and part your own people,” Kieri said. “How I was freed is the mystery; I do not understand it still, except as a gift of the gods. How I came back across the sea was a gift of the Seafolk, who, finding me hiding aboard and retching myself dry, did not throw me overboard to drown, but took pity on me for these same marks—some then still bleeding—and carried me across the sea to Bannerlíth and there set me ashore with a full belly, a few coins, and a shirt to my back. If not for the Seafolk I would not now be alive.”
“You did not tell them who you were?”
“I did not know, by then. The baron told me a short version of my true name over and over, until it was all the name I knew. I was too young—I had a few memories, but no way to describe them to anyone and all
I had learned told me it was dangerous to try.”
The king chewed his lip for a long moment. “I heard a tale,” he said finally. “I am a king; kings have spies; you will not despise me for that—”
Kieri shrugged. “Of course not. Any man of war must have spies.”
“Good. Then—I heard a tale, brought by a spy from Tsaia, that you said something like this to that Council, and were believed.”
“Some of them believed,” Kieri said. “Some did not. But their belief or unbelief does not affect the truth of it.”
“It is a tale someone might tell,” the king said, “who perhaps had been orphaned and mistreated, and wanted to think himself a lost prince.”
“Indeed,” Kieri said. “But I had no thought of being a lost prince: not then, not later. I knew I had come from a good home, and had found myself in a bad one: that is all. When I came to Halveric—” It had been in this season, with the trees losing their leaves, the nights cold, the days crisp, and harvests gathered in. “—I came in autumn, having gone inland from Bannerlíth—something drew me; I knew not what. But having found scant employment, and none with winter drawing in, I came to Halveric Steading a starveling beggar. And they took me in, as your folk had done, and fed me and would have had me a house servant, as I had been trained and was neat in serving at table.”
“From servant to squire is a long step,” the king said.
“All praise to the Halverics for giving me every chance they could,” Kieri said. “And that is a very long tale to tell. But it is due to the Halverics that, again, I lived—lived through that winter when I would otherwise have died, and lived years with them to relearn what a good home is, and then a good commander. You have spies in Aarenis, you said: they must have told you about Halveric Company.”
“Yes. Good fighters, well-disciplined, and not such as we wanted to meet. Yours the same. But both of you use women badly, and do not protect them.”
“Some women do not want to be protected,” Kieri said.
The king snorted. “Oh, some girls are wild and think they want adventure; they little know what war is. They are brave enough, our women, but their blood should be shed only in the marriage bed, bearing strong sons.”
“And daughters,” Kieri said.
“And daughters, yes. We must have daughters for the people to have children and live on. That is why a brave woman’s death in war is a waste.” He paused, staring at his hands on his knees, a man clearly trying to think of something else. When he looked up, he said, “The tale I heard included a magic sword … made by elves, the spy told my advisor, but you might as well know we think elves are but magelords themselves.”
Kieri nearly choked at that. “Elves magelords? No, they are not so! They are Elders, like the rockfolk, older and wiser than men. But yes, that is my sword now—it always was, but it was lost when my mother was killed and I was taken.”
“I would see this magic sword,” the king said.
“As you will, if you trust me with a blade in your presence.”
The king shrugged. “As you said, if you wanted to kill me, you could already have done it. I think a man bearing your scars is unlikely to kill an unarmed man sitting still and offering no insult.”
“It is hanging just outside,” Kieri said. He called again, and this time Arian answered. “Bring my sword, please, and then withdraw if the king of Pargun wishes it.”
“I am as happy with a witness,” the king said.
Arian brought in the sword and offered it formally to Kieri, laid over both hands. Kieri took it the same way.
“No one can draw it now but me,” he said. “In proof of that, try it—” He held it out to the Pargunese, who stared a moment.
“You know I intend to kill you and you are giving me a magic sword? Are you indeed blind in the mind?”
“No,” Kieri said. “But you are a man who wants proof, not words. You will find proof.”
The king took the sword; Kieri ignored Arian’s indrawn breath, and waited. A hand on the scabbard, a hand on the grip—the great green jewel of the pommel was dark and almost opaque. The king tugged. Nothing happened. He tried again; Kieri could see, under his sleeve, the bulge of his muscles. Again. The king looked up.
“So there is a trick to it?”
“Not a trick. Hold it so, and I will but touch the scabbard.” The king kept his grip and Kieri put his hand on the scabbard, a light touch. The king’s hand flew off the grip as if hit; he yelped. The sword swung toward Kieri, who put his own hand on the grip; the jewel burst into light, and he drew it singing from the scabbard, the blade glowing blue.
The king shrank back in his chair a moment, looking from the sword to his own hands. “I—it threw me off!”
“It did not harm you—”
“No—but I could not hold it when you touched it. And—” He eyed the blade again. “—and it is certainly magic, whoever made it.” He kept looking, as Kieri sheathed the blade and handed it, on its belt, back to Arian, who withdrew with it. “If I had known this—known it, not heard vague tales—it would have suggested we might have a common enemy, but it still does not affect your treatment of my daughter.”
“I treated her with all honor,” Kieri said firmly, sitting down again. “She came uninvited, as you know; what you may not know is that she arrived before her baggage, having ridden away from her escort and tried to escape them. They followed at speed; they could not stop her, but were with her when she came to the palace in the dead of night.”
“I was not told that.”
“I presume they were ashamed at having lost her, even for a short while,” Kieri said. “While I slept, my staff gave them rooms to suit their claims of royalty; I did not see your daughter until a day later, after she had rested and her baggage arrived. In the meantime, another uninvited princess had arrived, from Kostandan.”
“From Kostandan? Who would they send, that half-cripple Ganlin?”
“Half-cripple?”
“Did she not limp along half-sideways? She fell from a horse as a child and could not walk at all for most of a year—she is some kind of relative of my wife’s, so I heard things.”
“She limps but little, and only when she is tired,” Kieri said. “A pleasant girl, but another who did not wish to come. Her aunt is a formidable woman, and I wonder now if she told such tales when she returned home as your daughter’s escort did.”
“There can be no good tales told,” the king said, his expression hardening.
“Can there not? Listen, then. Your daughter—and the Kostandanyan princess—had rooms in the guest wing of the palace. Their attendants were nearby, unless they were warded by female members of my household—King’s Squires, in fact, well able to protect them should the need arise. They had the freedom of the rose garden, when their attendants permitted. When I met them at dinner, they and their escorts, they were both unhappy to be here—”
“And no wonder,” interrupted the king. “Seeing what came of it.”
“And each desired a private audience. I chose instead to speak to them only in company for some days. The couple escorting your daughter told me she was your pledge of desire for peace, a strong girl and perhaps willful, but certainly able to bear me strong sons. I asked if she was willing, and they shrugged—the woman shrugged—and said she might take some persuasion, but I was surely strong enough to master a mere girl.” Kieri paused; the king said nothing. “I am not minded to ‘master’ the woman I marry and force a girl who does not want me. ‘Court her but a little,’ the woman said, ‘and she will realize her good fortune.’ ” Kieri poured himself a mug of water and sipped. “It sickened me, but I did not yet know the girl was truly unwilling, and for courtesy I agreed to talk with her. We walked in the rose garden.”
“Roses are a soft southern flower,” the king said.
“My mother planted that garden,” Kieri said. “I would not change it.” He sipped again. “So we walked, and I asked her why she had come. She answered shortly
at first, but finally said she had been drugged and carried away in the night. With my history, you can imagine, perhaps, how that affected me.”
The king looked thoughtful. “I did not know,” he said. “Now I see … it made you remember …”
“I always remember,” Kieri said. “And I would not marry an unwilling woman, certainly not one who had been treated that way. I told her so; her first expression was relief, but then fear. I asked what frightened her, and she said your anger. You would punish her, she said, and she would never have the life she wanted.” He paused again; the king’s expression had softened slightly. “That is when she told me about the knife, and about what her guardians had told her were your orders.”
The king’s eyes flew open. “Orders I did not give. I will not say I never thought of that, because I did, but in the end I rejected it. No child of mine should play assassin; it is unworthy of royalty to do such deeds, and she, in particular, would feel that.”
“But she thought you had. She begged my help. She begged me to contrive an escape for her. She would do anything, she said, be it never so hard or humble. She would cut her hair and dress as a boy; she would cut herself and scar her face; she would … she had a double-hand of ideas, most involving mutilation or death. She seemed in the mood I had been in, not caring if only I could escape.”
“But I didn’t—”
“She thought you had,” Kieri said again. “She acted on what she had been told. Have you not done the same, and I as well? Do not all men, if they have been told plausible lies, believe them and act accordingly?”
“Perhaps … yes, I suppose so. But Elis …” His hands clenched and unclenched.
“She went on her knees to me, as if she were my subject, and would have clasped them, promising obedience to any orders I might give her—as long as they accorded with her desires, that is.”
The king gave a harsh bark of laughter. “That is like Elis. Obedient to my will when my will ran with hers.”
“I reminded her that might look ill, should her guardians be watching, and said I would think on it, but could promise no more for the time. I would, I said, keep secret our conversation and asked her to do the same. Then I took her back inside, and bowed over her hand, and had my interview with the other princess—with Ganlin.”
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